


Watch and Wait

by Reading Redhead (readingredhead)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readingredhead/pseuds/Reading%20Redhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jack Harkness spies on Rose's past and one time he gets spied on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch and Wait

**Author's Note:**

> Written for effingeden as part of a challenge in the comment_fic community on Livejournal.

1.

The first time, it happens (almost) by accident. He needs to go to London anyway and he's been thinking more and more about her the closer he gets to her in time. It's only natural that their timelines converge.

It's a surprise to him that it happens at this particular spot. In between saving the world and battling samurai in imperial Japan, she told him – in fragments – about this day, and the many ways it had to happen before it happened right. He stands on the corner opposite the church, shrouded in his dark coat and a convenient shadow, and watches what he cannot change – what she has already changed. He's not sure if the gnawing emptiness that performs a violent takeover of his stomach is a reaction to seeing her again after so many years, or to the sound of her tears as her father dies in her arms.

2.

After that, it isn't an accident anymore. He makes it part of the job to keep track of her – you could ask him why (and some have, by now) but he won't ever tell.

Maybe it's the contrasts. The seven-year-old in jumper and overalls who careens through a mass of pigeons in the local park, smiling and giggling as she goes, seems little like his former memories of her. It's hard for him to imagine this girl who now only scatters pigeons growing up to scatter words as ciphers through time and space.

But then, he thinks, in a moment of dull clarity, that what she does now is not so different from what she will grow up to do. After all, he has a good deal in common with these pigeons. She runs right through the middle of his life and changes everything – but when he finally settles down, he's never far away.

3.

A lot of things happen to her in that chip shop, but his favorite has to be her first date with Mickey and their first real fight, which happen almost simultaneously: "This is your idea of a date? Just because you've known me since I was born doesn't mean you can get away with not making an effort!"

4.

1AM on a Friday night. He leans against the end of the bar and watches her joking and laughing with her friends out of the corner of his eye. The music's too loud to hear what they're saying and the lights play games with her sequined dress and dangling earrings so even looking at her he sees something different, something essential – all light and motion, sudden impressions.

He knows he's not meant to be a presence in her history, not yet, so he leaves before the bartender can point out to her the man who's just paid for her group's latest round.

5.

The store she works in hardly sells anything he's looking to buy, but all the same, whenever he's in London he finds himself popping in and browsing through an aisle or two in hopes that he might catch a glimpse of her face.

6.

He's been waiting for this day to come, and though it's like the others, a point in the constellation of her past which is as yet uncharted, it feels as though he's attuned enough to her temporal presence by now that the tingling sensation that summons him to London on this particular day can't be a coincidence. He's already on the train when he hears about the attacking mannequins; by the time he arrives at Euston Station, the Doctor has set it all right. Crisis averted, once again.

He gets there just in time to watch the Doctor ask her to follow him. Her answer shocks – neither of them ever told him that, at first, she'd refused. He's not sure how anyone could, although he knows she's not the first and probably not the last. He's traveled with the Doctor and even though that left him stranded with a broken teleporter at the edge of the universe he'd do it again in a heartbeat. So he understands exactly what she must be feeling when she runs back and flings herself into his arms.

It's not until after the blue police box vanishes into the night that he turns around and realizes that while he's been watching the scene that plays out below, he's been being watched in return. The man who stands over him doesn't look like anyone he knows, but in the game he plays, looks aren't everything, and he's got a pretty good idea who this might be. "Fancy meeting you here, Doctor. Nice body."

But his suggestive eyebrow-waggle goes completely unnoticed. The Doctor's too busy looking at the spot where the TARDIS used to be. "I waited until I had one I knew she couldn't recognize."

"I thought you weren't supposed to come back."

"No," the Doctor sighs. There are dark circles under his eyes. "I'm not."


End file.
